Admittedly, I have not been very good about keeping my blog up-to-date in recent weeks. These days, it’s less a question of “Where’s Matthew?” than it is a question of “Where isn’t Matthew?” In short, I have been doing a lot of travelling.

Looking over my frequent flyer statement for the past month, I count:

– 5 visits to Barcelona
– 1 visit to Dublin
– 1 visit to Geneva
– 2 visits to London

It feels like more than that, if I am honest. These days I seem to be living on a plane. The Barcelona flights leave early in the morning and usually involve a 5am start. As Aude can attest, I am not exactly man-at-his-finest at 5 in the morning, no matter how many times I do it.

I am getting better at negotiating CDG airport, though. I have learned all the little shortcuts that means I can make it from taxi to gate in less than five minutes. I know which security lines are consistently shortest, and I can fetch myself breakfast in the lounge on autopilot these days.

I’m also getting to know Barcelona a little better. As the weather gets cooler, we have traded our hotel by the beach for a series of hotels downtown. We are discovering good restaurants and bars, and I have finally been introduced to real, genuine, proper tapas. It is a million miles away from anything I have tasted elsewhere.

The system is pretty straight-forward. The tapas are placed on large plates around the restaurant, and you help yourself to whatever you like. New, different tapas comes out all night. Each one is held to a piece of bread by a toothpick. At the end of the evening, you return to the bar and pay your bill. It’s all based on an honesty system – you hand over your toothpicks, they’re tallied up, and you confess to however many beers you’ve had to drink. Depending on how long you have been at the tapas bar, this may be more difficult than it appears – in which case, they’ll usually work off an estimate! I can’t imagine this system working in England, but it seems to work fine here.

It looks like I will be spending most of my time back-and-forth between Paris and Barcelona until mid-November, after which I hope to reduce my involvement in the project, spending more time working in Switzerland (just in time for ski season – no coincidence!) and less in Spain.

More updates to come. Just wanted to put something on here so that people knew I wasn’t dead.

Life hasn’t been all hard work, though. I was invited to run a five-day training course for some of our recently-promoted graduates, based in Alicante, Spain. Since I only had a week of vacation, there was no way I could turn down a week in the sun.

There were over 400 participants involved in the training, and we managed to take over the entire hotel. The weather was great, with temperatures in the high twenties and low thirties, warm water in the pool and lots of sunshine. My biggest regret was not bringing sunscreen – even though my time outside was limited (as I was preparing classes), I still managed to find enough time in the sun to burn myself. I spent the rest of the trip doing my impression of a lobster.

Delegates playing ping-pong by the pool

Relaxing by the pool

Cruising on a dolphin…

Flying fish!

Playing in the pool

They really laid on a lot for the guys. They had chartered a plane from Paris for all the French delegates, and there was a real party atmosphere as we headed to Alicante. On the second night, they rented an amusement park exclusively for us. On the third day, they brought in all sorts of games around the pool for a team-building afternoon. My two highlights of that day: first, the rest of my team-mates assuming I was a recent graduate (haven’t felt quite that young since I was carded at a bar in the US) and the second, someone coming up and complimenting me on my good English (I was the only native speaker involved in the training!)

The class itself was a lot of fun to run – I have run similar classes before so didn’t have to do much preparation. The delegates do most of the work themselves, and present back on the final day (after spending all night in a nightclub we rented for their exclusive use. Many didn’t get back until 6am, but they still managed to be up and working at 8am despite being told they weren’t required to start until 10h30! That’s a pretty dedicated group.) Here are a few pictures of them giving their presentations…

Students presenting their case studies

Students presenting their case studies

Students presenting their case studies

Students presenting their case studies

Students presenting their case studies

Students presenting their case studies

Students presenting their case studies

Students presenting their case studies

Students presenting their case studies

Students presenting their case studies

Students presenting their case studies

And here are a few team shots as we presented the awards…

The most important moment of the week – the winning scores are revealed!

Student team

Student team

Student team

Student team

Student team

Turns out there isn’t really much to photograph around Geneva. Oh well, here is some evidence that I was there…

Boats on the harbour in downtown Geneva

The Geneva skyline

The Geneva Jet d’Eau fountain

A statue in the park

Another week, another set of stamps in my passport. This week was actually reasonably calm. I spent Monday and Tuesday in Paris, then headed off to Zurich for the remainder of the week. It was nice to spend a few nights in my own bed for a change.

Zurich is still in the full swing of Euro 2008, although it isn’t quite so much of a party atmosphere now that Switzerland has been eliminated from the competition. There is still a big party along the Limmatquai, but the seas of red shirts that were apparent last week are no longer present.

They have been replaced by seas of orange shirts, the colour of the Dutch supporters. Only it turns out there is a small problem. SBB, the national Swiss railway, also dresses its track workers in bright orange suits so they don’t get hit by a train as they work on the tracks.

They have had to change them into yellow uniforms in the past week or two. Apparently, the Dutch have a habit of getting drunk, and in a moment of drunken confusion, following the SBB staffers onto the rail lines, thinking that they are going to some sort of party.

Here are a few more pictures of the Euro 2008 celebrations this week…

Statues in the Zurich Bahnhof to celebrate the Euro 2008 competition in Switzerland.

 

Statues in the Zurich Bahnhof to celebrate the Euro 2008 competition in Switzerland.

 

A brass band plays outside my window on Rosengasse

 

Trumpet solo

 

Crowds on the Limmatquai, getting ready to watch the Euro 2008 football matches on the big screens around the town

 

Florent, my colleague, poses for a picture in front of the river

 

The Swedish fans seem to be attracting plenty of attention

 

Views across the Limmat

 

A full moon over Zurich

 

A full moon over Zurich

 

I spent Monday through Wednesday in Barcelona, or more accurately, outside Barcelona. The factory is just beside the airport and the hotel was in Gava, directly on the beach but a fair way outside the city centre.

Looking out onto the pool from my room. Unfortunately, cold weather and rain plus long working days means that this was as close as I would get to going for a dip…

One of the nicer hotel rooms I have been in on this project…

One of the nicer hotel rooms I have been in on this project…

Free minibar. The sweetest words a travelling consultant can hear. Is there any reason not to love this hotel? (For the record, the minibar contained 3 bottles of soda, 4 bottles of water, and a 25ml bottle of beer. Before anyone gets any ideas…)

This was my first trip to Barcelona, but I didn’t get to see much of the city. I saw quite a lot of the airport (although not the airline lounge, despite being entitled access I was banned because my codeshare was apparently not eligible). My experiences flying with Iberia confirmed my worst fears: the airlines of Latin countries are generally to be avoided. Tiny seats, surly service, and not even a free glass of water. Not exactly what I expect when I’ve paid nearly EUR600 for a ticket.

I did get to see a lot of Barcelona that was not on the tourist track, however. The taxi driver did not know where the hotel was, so we relied on GPS. And GPS decided to take us on a tour of some of the grottier areas of Barcelona. And right through the middle of the trucker’s strike.

The factory itself was interesting, although I have not had a tour of the production facilities yet. The overwhelming smell when I was there was of fruit flavouring, cloying and sticky-sweet. Apparently this isn’t too bad – when they produce mint products, the smell is unbearable. Remind me to give mint day a miss.

We had some great tapas at a restaurant near the hotel, washed back with a good bottle of Rioja. I was pleasantly surprised after coming from Switzerland – I had to ask the waiter if the wine was priced by the glass or by the bottle, because a bottle of wine in Spain was roughly the same price as a small glass in Switzerland.

It managed to rain for nearly the entire trip. Not quite what I had expected from sunny Spain. Overall, my first trip to Barcelona wasn’t an overwhelming success. Maybe next time will be better.

It has been a very busy month at work – which explains why my blog has come to an absolute standstill. We at a very busy stage of the project, which means that there isn’t much time to focus on putting together entries for the blog – but I am also travelling constantly. Last week was Paris, London, and Zurich. This week is Paris, Zurich, Geneva, and Barcelona.

Luckily, most of the travel is by train, so it isn’t nearly as stressful as if I were constantly having to catch flights all around the world. But there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight, at least not before August. In August, all of Europe goes on holiday at once, so there should be a brief respite before things pick up again in September.

More and more of the travel will be to Barcelona as the project progresses – not a bad place to spend the summer and autumn, as the hotel is right on the beach and the weather will hopefully remain good.

The Swiss office has a big marketing department. We took advantage of some of the props to take a few photographs.

And yes, this is as fun and exciting as tax gets.

One of my team members posing with a marketing bear

The team poses with the bear. You can tell the consultants from the clients — check out who’s wearing jackets!

More team photos

My team thought that it would be funny to replace me with a jackass. I don’t know what they were trying to imply.

View out the office window. You don’t get views like this in downtown London or Paris!

View out the office window. You don’t get views like this in downtown London or Paris!